Image Quest #1: My town

For background on this contest, please see my announcement. If there are any questions/comments about the overall contest, please share them on that thread.

The theme for this challenge is "My town".

One of my favorite things about this forum is getting to know fellow forum member through their images which provide a peek into their lives. To that end, in this challenge I'd like you to share something about the place you live.

EDIT: Based on some feedback, let me clarify: the theme is meant to be open to your interpretation. You can interpret it as literally or as loosely as you like. Feel free to try to take a wide-angle shot from a drone that shows your entire town, or just create an image that evokes the theme for you.

This challenge will run through Friday, June 12. Please post a single image that represents the theme.

EDIT: Just to nail down the details, deadline to post entries is this Friday, June 12 at 10pm Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7). After that, voting will remain open through noon (PDT) on Sunday, June 14. Votes will be tallied, and a winner will be announced Sunday afternoon/evening, and then the next challenge should be posted by the winner sometime early next week.

Rules:

A single "theme" will be provided for each challenge. These can be specify a particular subject (e.g. "trees", "vehicles", "animals", "water"), a shooting/post processing method ("black and white", "shot in M-mode (manual)", "blur", "multiple exposure") or it can be more ephemeral ("happy", "orange", "renewal", "symmetry"). Note: since our audience is global, themes that reference a particular season of the year should be avoided.

Each challenge will run for a period of two weeks. This should give everyone that wishes to participate a chance to get out and exercise his/her vision.

Since the intent of this challenge is to get people out and shooting, entries should be shot during the timeframe of the challenge (i.e. no searching through back catalogs for images that match the theme).

Since this is a Micro Four Thirds forum, entries should be shot with a Micro Four Thirds camera.

Each participant must choose a single image to share in a post on the thread.

A winner will be declared at the end of each challenge based on "votes" received from forum participants. A "like" (thumbs-up) will count as one vote and a "winner" (medal) will count as two votes. Voting is open to anyone (not just participants) and voters may cast as many or as few votes as they wish. Ties will be broken based on the larger number of "winner" votes, beyond that, any ties will be broken by the member who chose the theme (see below).

The winner will choose the theme and post the subsequent challenge in a new thread. If the winner fails to post a new challenge within five days, the responsibility passes to the runner-up. At the end of the challenge the winner of the previous challenge should total the votes and announce the winner and the runners-up.

Nothing to share yet. Spent some time over the weekend trying to figure out how best to capture the theme. Beginning to wonder already if the two week timeframe is just going to invite "paralysis by analysis". Hopefully others are similarly plotting their best shot.

An other special new building in Rotterdam is the "Markthal" (Market Hall).
This is a residential- and office building with a market hall underneath.
The inside of the building is painted with a 11.000 m2 artwork.
see: http://www.designcurial.com/news/market-forces-4455805

"Single image" as in "one shot taken" and not "237 images beautifully stitched together", I assume?! Thanks. And yes, paralysis has set in...

Click to expand...

Feel free to stitch together, collage, focus stack, etc. as many images as you choose. The rule is less about shutter actuations and more about each participant submitting a single entry rather than posting ten images to see what sticks.

I happened to be visiting my parents when DeeJayK posted this thread, so I have interpreted "My town" as the place I grew up in rather than where I live now. This photo was taken at Killiney Beach, to the south of Dublin, Ireland. The light trail is from a DART commuter trail on the Dublin-Bray railway; this part of the line opened in 1854 and was electrified in 1984. I must have travelled on this line thousands of times, as did my father on his daily commute to work.

I used the EM10's Live Composite feature for this photo, base exposure was 6 seconds and I think there must have been at least 10 exposures as the train climbed up the hill. I was there around 10:30pm on a Sunday night when there are very long gaps between trains, so I only got one shot at this.

Recently went for a stroll on the weekend, looking for something suitable for the theme. It was toss up between this shot and another.
There are 3 things I wanted to show with this photo
-The Brisbane River which our city is built around
-An iconic scene or landmark for the city - in this case, it's the 'Story Bridge'. A locally well known landmark.
-People living life - in this case, I waited for something suitable to pass by. Young family with baby and dog, seemed a good fit. Brisbane isn't a particularly amazing city, but one thing my friends and I agree on, is that it's a good place to bring up family.
I went black and white with this one, because weather was overcast at the time and lighting was flat. I usually prefer colour, though.

I went for more of a photojournalistic interpretation of the theme. This picture was taken on May 31 during a standing ovation at the final concert conducted by my town's long time high school band director, who is retiring at the end of the school year after more than thirty years as a music educator. He has taken the band many places, including to the Tournament of Roses Parade in 2014, and is responsible for the band program growing to become the largest HS band program in the state, so it was an emotional night, particularly for the seniors.

I live in Seoul, Korea (more specifically in Gangnam) but Myeongdong which is located centrally in Seoul epitomizes the city so well. It's both a prime shopping district and one of the major financial districts with over 2 million people coming thru this part of the city on a daily basis. The real estate and rent prices in this area are some of the city's steepest (more expensive than NYC) but it attracts people from all walks of life, all age groups and all races from locals to tourists.

Ooops. I just read the rules and it says that entries should be shot with an m43 camera. If this is a problem, I'll shoot another pic sometime this week.

Victoria, B.C. is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, just across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from the U.S. border (Washington state) and a ferry ride away from Vancouver, B.C. on the Canadian mainland. It's a great little city, benefiting from being the provincial capital and a tourism magnet, yet its island setting keeps it partially isolated from some of the ills that plague many cities. Victoria's Inner Harbour is the heart of the city. It is surrounded by a picturesque downtown, hotels, restaurants, condo buildings and the iconic Empress Hotel and B.C. Legislature Building. The setting draws 200 cruise ships annually and countless other tourists that arrive by ferry. But what makes Victoria unique is the float plane traffic in and out of the harbour every day. An average of 250,000 people arrive in Victoria's Inner Harbour each year via float planes operated by three small commercial airlines. After living in Victoria for twelve years, I never tire of hearing them fly high above my house as they approach or watching them land in the harbour and taxi to the floating terminal.